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CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!

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EchiDna

CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« on: 6 Jan 2004, 11:26 pm »
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JLM

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CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #1 on: 6 Jan 2004, 11:47 pm »
I wonder if the consumer product be in the form of a memory chip similar to what is used in PDAs or digital cameras.

Or as internet speeds and the number of connections continue to increase perhaps we'll just down load CD/SACD quality for a monthly service fee.

Makes you wonder what format CD, 5.1 SACD, DVD, etc. that it would come out in.
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ABEX

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CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #2 on: 7 Jan 2004, 02:50 am »
There was talk a few years ago of being able to store everything ever produced into one machine. Wish I could find the article.

There shall be advances made in all area's in the next few years.but for people that are hobbyist we shall still hold onto our old analog format and all processing and storage capabilities shall advance.WIth the advent of the new Digital Amps I bet we shall see size being a competitive point. How small can we get it without losing sound quality is what I will be looking for.

Would love to have a Linn Klimax setup.I am really getting tired of the big box look.

JMO
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BradJudy

CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #3 on: 7 Jan 2004, 02:50 am »
News stories like this come up all of the time.  I can't count the number of ones on revolutionary storage techniques or displays I've seen.  I wouldn't place money on any particular one becoming a consumer product in 5-10 years.
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RJ

CD's could be dead in 5 years
« Reply #4 on: 7 Jan 2004, 03:36 am »
I sell semiconductors for a living. I don't believe solid state memory will be close to being competative with the price of CD's within a 5 year time frame. Currently the solid state equivalent to a CD sells for a little under $250.00. A rewritable blank CD is about $.50 and a stamped production CD blank is about a dime.

There is also another issue regarding duplication with "solid state" memory.  Flash based memory must be "written to" or programmed. A 1GB device takes a relatively long time to program. Try copying 128MB of data to a compact Flash or SD Card and see how long it takes. CD's are stamped and can be produced much more quickly.
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John B

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CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #5 on: 7 Jan 2004, 04:21 am »
Vinyl should be nearing it's last legs too...but wait, it was supposed to be dead 20 years ago...what the hell is keeping it alive one wonders...pondering the imponderable...coursing through waters with turbulent tidings.......
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Pez

CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #6 on: 7 Jan 2004, 04:38 am »
Ha! I love it.  Please explain why this in any way shape or form would mean cd's have even a remote chance of being "replaced"?  

I mean are consumers going to say "Oh wow a little chip that can be easily lost, which isn't compatible with any other of my devices, has barely more storage capacity than that of a CD, is definately not equal to the storage capacity of a DVD, and I have to buy all new organic/non-organic chips to replace my entire CD collection for no apparent reason? I'D BE STUPID NOT TO!!!!!"  Please, the only replacing going on here is going to involve my hand bitch slapping (and thereby replacing) the face of the dipshit who wrote this asinine article.

out-
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EchiDna

CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #7 on: 7 Jan 2004, 06:04 am »
bitch slapping or otherwise, here we go...

like it or not, 'the masses acceptance rate' is what determines the fate of all technologies, including vinyl, cd, cassette tape, reel to reel etc...

why should CD's be held in the same reverence as vinyl? personally I don't think they are and I doubt any of you do either. Vinyl is and has been for the past 15 years an enthusiast's toy, not a mass market item, cassette, cd, minidisc (location specific to Japan) and now DVDa and SACD are all different formats and they all have had or will have their day to varying success. Why should the currently all conquering CD be any different?
Whether this technology described in the article is 'the one' to replace the cd or not is another matter, but I firmly believe that CD's will not be the media of choice in another 5-10 years.

blank cd's cost about $25 when they first came out, burners cost over $1000, now they cost less than 5% of those figures and operate 40+ times faster... why would solid state media or even wireless, high bandwidth streaming technologies be any different? today's price for anything has little relevance to tomorrow's. We all know that cd's cost a few dollars in production, but how much do you PAY? a few dollars? I don't think so...

in 1995 when I first got online with my own home dialup account, I was a rarity in Australia. It cost me over $30 a month for an account with VERY frequent dropouts at only 5400 bits per second for a maximum of 9 hours a month. Now (in Singapore) for half that price I can get approximately 270 times that speed(1.5 kb/s) via cable and unlimited access. In another 5 years I don't see why I couldn't get that same speed as today but wireless, everywhere I go for the same or less money.

As more and more music goes online for distribution and more and more people get faster 'wireless connected' devices, the logical step is to distribute the product (music) either by download or streaming to those devices. For us, that means less or no physical media to buy, or higher prices for that which can be bought (ala the current vinyl situation).

I'm confident to say that within 5 years I will not have any reason to buy another CD or a new cd player to replace that which I have when it dies. By then everything I currently own will be on my audio server and anything new will be downloadable at CD quality or better.

Personally, vinyl is not in the picture - like it or not, it is an will remain the domain of people who are prepared to spend hours trawling through other people's throw aways in second hand stores or willing to spend $50 on an album that you could buy on cd for $17. it is an 'exclusive' sub-set of the crazy audiophile subspecies that we are all part of.
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Rob Babcock

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CD's could be obsolete in just 5 years!
« Reply #8 on: 7 Jan 2004, 06:13 am »
Hmmm...I guess I do sorta veiw CDs that way.  And I will confess I don't think vinyl sounds particulary good at all.  Still, nowadays music can be veiwed as data, and the carrier need not be that important.

I'm not a futurist, but I don't think RAM will be the Next Big Thing.  Face it, technologically the CD has been obsolete for years, but we can't change music formats every five years.  Like in the console gaming industry, you have to have your format last long enough to recoup the cost of tooling up and developing it.  And you have to deal with economics and human behavior realities- and even in an era where we're aware of Moore's Law, people don't want to replace their movie and movie collections each time a marginally better format comes along.

I think DVD will probably be an intermediate step in replacing the CD, but I think lots of digital carriers will coexist for a long time.

BTW, I'd love to see a RAM based storage media someday (maybe a memory crystal a la Babylon 5) that wouldn't have the jitter problems nor experience any wear.

I thnk we'll see lots more successors trying to replace the CD come and go in the next 5 or ten years, but I think the CD will still be around.
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